Tag: Barack Obama

In 1991 Sheldon L. Richman at The CATO Institute virtually gave away the US Foreign Policy game for anyone who hadn’t already seen through the long years of the “spreading freedom and democracy” smoke and mirror show emanating from every US administration since Eisenhower’s warning about the Military Industrial Complex, in a long and very detailed policy analysis article titled  “Ancient History”: U.S. Conduct in the Middle East Since World War II and the Folly of Intervention:

After 70 years of broken Western promises regarding Arab independence, it should not be surprising that the West is viewed with suspicion and hostility by the populations (as opposed to some of the political regimes) of the Middle East.[3] The United States, as the heir to British imperialism in the region, has been a frequent object of suspicion. Since the end of World War II, the United States, like the European colonial powers before it, has been unable to resist becoming entangled in the region’s political conflicts. Driven by a desire to keep the vast oil reserves in hands friendly to the United States, a wish to keep out potential rivals (such as the Soviet Union), opposition to neutrality in the cold war, and domestic political considerations, the United States has compiled a record of tragedy in the Middle East.

[snip]

If the chief natural resource of the Middle East were bananas, the region would not have attracted the attention of U.S. policymakers as it has for decades. Americans became interested in the oil riches of the region in the 1920s, and two U.S. companies, Standard Oil of California and Texaco, won the first concession to explore for oil in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. They discovered oil there in 1938, just after Standard Oil of California found it in Bahrain. The same year Gulf Oil (along with its British partner Anglo-Persian Oil) found oil in Kuwait. During and after World War II, the region became a primary object of U.S. foreign policy. It was then that policymakers realized that the Middle East was “a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.“[4]

Subsequently, as a result of cooperation between the U.S. government and several American oil companies, the United States replaced Great Britain as the chief Western power in the region.[5] In Iran and Saudi Arabia, American gains were British (and French) losses.[6] Originally, the dominant American oil interests had had limited access to Iraqi oil only (through the Iraq Petroleum Company, under the 1928 Red Line Agreement). In 1946, however, Standard Oil of New Jersey and Mobil Oil Corp., seeing the irresistible opportunities in Saudi Arabia, had the agreement voided.[7] When the awakening countries of the Middle East asserted control over their oil resources, the United States found ways to protect its access to the oil. Nearly everything the United States has done in the Middle East can be understood as contributing to the protection of its long-term access to Middle Eastern oil and, through that control, Washington’s claim to world leadership. The U.S. build-up of Israel and Iran as powerful gendarmeries beholden to the United States, and U.S. aid given to “moderate,” pro-Western Arab regimes, such as those in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan, were intended to keep the region in friendly hands. That was always the meaning of the term “regional stability.“[8]

The New York Times reports on a poll that shows while “Americans overwhelmingly say that in general they prefer cutting government spending to paying higher taxes”

Yet their preference for spending cuts, even in programs that benefit them, dissolves when they are presented with specific options related to Medicare and Social Security, the programs that directly touch the most people and also are the biggest drivers of the government’s projected long-term debt.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans choose higher payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security over reduced benefits in either program. And asked to choose among cuts to Medicare, Social Security or the nation’s third-largest spending program – the military – a majority by a large margin said cut the Pentagon. . . . . .

Asked what Congress should focus on, 43 percent of Americans say job creation; health care is a distant second, cited by 18 percent, followed by deficit reduction, war and illegal immigration.

If Medicare benefits have to be reduced, the most popular option is raising premiums on affluent beneficiaries. Similarly, if Social Security benefits must be changed to make the program more financially sound, a broad majority prefers the burden fall on the wealthy. Even most wealthy Americans agree.

Meanwhile, Social Security Works  has a series of slides assembled from past polls that clearly indicate that Americans don’t trust President Obama’s handling of Social Security. In fact, as Richard (RJ) Eskow points out in the article, they trust him even less that they trusted George W. Bush.

The Republican privatization attempt was thought to have contributed significantly to that party’s Congressional losses in 2006. Yet the president refuses to say that he won’t cut Social Security, and he continues to have kind words for the reckless, inhumane, and unneeded proposals of his Deficit Commission co-chairs (the Commission was unable to agree to a plan).

In this climate, with these numbers, any attempt by the president to cut Social Security could only be described in one phrase: Political malpractice. Is that where he’s headed? Or will he surprise us all by delivering a stirring, unequivocal defense of Social Security? After all the suspense and fear over this issue, that would be a political moment for the ages.

But if he’s going to have a change of heart, he better act fast. The damage is already considerable. As Social Security Works explains, the 20-point advantage Democrats had on this issue for the last 15 years has evaporated, and trust in President Obama is roughly half of what it was for President Clinton on the same issue. Obama’s performance is even worse among those much-sought-after independent voters. Only 18 percent of them trust him on this issue.

It won’t bode well for the Senate Democrats either:

It would be comforting to be able to say that this is all a misunderstanding and that the president will keep his promise to defend Social Security. But we can’t do that. His silence about Social Security, especially after Harry Reid’s stemwinding defense of the program, is disturbing. Reid and other members of the Senate and House are on the front line, and any attempt by Obama to triangulate and propose “bipartisan” cuts will devastate them. That’s why there are reports like The Hill‘s of a strategic split between the president and Democrats in Congress: They’re afraid he’s going to sell them out for a personality-driven reelection campaign that suits his needs, not his party’s or the country’s.

Obama will be committing political suicide and taking the Senate Democrats with him if he doesn’t start listening to his base, now.

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma

Damning, indeed.

By Daniel Strauss

01/17/11 05:18 PM ET

President Obama has “learned from experience” that some of the Bush administration’s decisions on terrorism issues were necessary, according to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

In his first interview since undergoing major heart surgery last July, Cheney said he thinks Obama has been forced to rethink some of his national security positions now that he sits in the Oval Office.

“I think he’s learned that what we did was far more appropriate than he ever gave us credit for while he was a candidate. So I think he’s learned from experience. And part of that experience was the Democrats having a terrible showing last election.”

Cheney also asserted that Obama has learned that the prison at Guantanamo Bay simply cannot be closed, despite the promises he made while campaigning for the White House.

“I think he’s learned that he’s not going to be able to close Guantanamo,” Cheney said. “That it’s – if you didn’t have it, you’d have to create one like that. You’ve got to have some place to put terrorists who are combatants who are bound and determined to try to kill Americans.”

Cheney made the comments about Obama in an interview that is set to air Tuesday on NBC’s “Today.” The interview was Cheney’s first since before he underwent heart surgery in July. Doctors introduced a device into his heart that pumps blood from the ventricle chamber to his aorta.

From a “dead man walking”

Rahimullah Yusufzai is a Senior Analyst with the Pakistani TV channel Geo TV, and the Resident Editor of The News International in Peshawar, an English newspaper from Pakistan. He’s worked as a correspondent for Time Magazine, BBC World Service, BBC Pashto, BBC Urdu, Geo TV, and ABC News. Mr. Yusufzai has interviewed Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and a range of other militants across the tribal areas of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Here Yusufzai talks from Peshawar, Pakistan with Real News Network’s Paul Jay about the real U.S. objectives in Afghanistan, and notes that the U.S. now has more than 100,000 troops in AfPak fighting at the most a couple of hundred Al Qaeda members, with only 50 of them in Afghanistan.

Our Spelunker-in-Chief has discovered another cave. Just when I thought there was some hope that he would start standing up to his Republican critics, my optimism was dashed. On December 24th it was announced that outlined a new policy that would pay doctors to council patients about end of life care that was outlined in Medicare.

When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.

Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

Then there was the disheartening news that the President had decided to reverse his decision

The Obama administration, reversing course, will revise a Medicare regulation to delete references to end-of-life planning as part of the annual physical examinations covered under the new health care law, administration officials said Tuesday.

The move is an abrupt shift, coming just days after the new policy took effect on Jan. 1.

Many doctors and providers of hospice care had praised the regulation, which listed “advance care planning” as one of the services that could be offered in the “annual wellness visit” for Medicare beneficiaries.

While administration officials cited procedural reasons for changing the rule, it was clear that political concerns were also a factor. The renewed debate over advance care planning threatened to become a distraction to administration officials who were gearing up to defend the health law against attack by the new Republican majority in the House.

This reversal removes this valued conversation with your doctor from your annual physical. This is the government getting between you and your doctor about your treatment, the treatment that you want, or in some cases might not want, when you reach the end of your life and might not be able to make those decisions for yourself.

Paul Waldman summed this up

Rule No. 1: When you make policy decisions based on “The Republicans might attack us on this!” then you haven’t just lost politically; you’ve betrayed the things you allegedly believed in.

What’s particularly maddening about this isn’t just the cowardice; it’s the fact that this is a debate Democrats can easily turn to their advantage. First, it’s important to note that unlike in many cases, the press has taken a pretty firm pro-truth position on this issue, which sets an important context for how whatever discussion there ends up being would play out. Reports about it have overwhelmingly declared the “death panel” line to be false. It was PolitiFact’s 2009 “Lie of the Year.” Seriously — take a look at how it’s been reported. The press has done a good job on this one. And the main proponent of the idea, Sarah Palin, is one of the most unpopular politicians in America

(emphasis mine)

If this is Obama standing up to Republicans, I don’t have a lot of positive feelings about the next two years.

Big Tent Democrat commented earlier today at Talkleft in his post Policy And Politics: The Economy that:

Discussing E.J. Dionne’s column today, Booman makes some good points:

Considering that [the column] is supposed to be about [Dems] regaining the initiative, it’s pretty weak to lecture the White House about its tendency to defend itself and “the left” about never being satisfied. Those things aren’t going to change. We can be critical of that reality, but we ought not offer it up as something to fix so that we can get our mojo back.

In fact it is not something to fix. The White House should tout its accomplishments. They are in the politics business after all. And people dissatisfied with what the White House is doing should say so and work to make them do what they want. That’s how it works. But both Booman and Dionne miss the connection between the political problems Dems have and the economic policies of the Obama Administration.

[…]

And these failures explain almost all of the political trouble the Democrats are in. Booman writes:

There are two things that will help us get our mojo back: Speaker Boehner and Obama’s reelection campaign. That’s all we need. And improving economy would be nice, but realistically we are going to be fighting over who is to blame for high unemployment and who has a better plan to get something through Congress that will create jobs.

(Emphasis supplied.) If that is where the political battle is going to be fought, then the Dems’ political fortunes do not look bright.

“An improving economy would be nice but realistically we are going to be fighting over who is to blame for high unemployment”?

Booman of course and as usual has his finger on the pulse of reality, and like many strong Obama supporters knows deep in his heart that it’s far more important for them to “win” than it is to have the administration produce results, even if he has to lose to win.

So here’s the deal. Grab your bootstraps and pull as hard as you can. Elbow everybody else out of the way, and climb over any mountains of bodies in your way. Or stomp them if they won’t be reasonable and just die.

Do unto others before they do unto you, and you too can make the big time. Baby.

The top of the mountain waits for you! The shining city on the hill where the streets are paved with gold and you’ll never have to look another whining starving emaciated worthless shiftless lazy ass bum in the eye again and all the beautiful people look like they just walked off the cover of a magazine.

God loves you and he wants you to live a rich life in heaven on earth.

Believe, my friends. Believe, and you too can live the American Dream. Jeezus loves you too and this is God’s Country my friends!

Give up your whining socialist fantasies and screw the suckers. Be a real self made man or woman. The brass ring is there just waiting for you to grab. You can do this!

Buck up, straighten up, and fly right. If you miss it you have only yourself to blame for being so worthless. The world doesn’t owe you a living. You have to get out there, grab a live baby, and rip it’s heart out with your teeth if you want to live the blessed life of a fulfilled human being.

The only winners are those who die with the most toys. You know this in your heart of hearts, and everyone else is a loser. Just fertilizer. Shit. Made to serve you. The ground upon which you strut in silver slippers, my friends.

It’s get better on the flip…

It looks like all out war has just been declared on Capitol Hill and not by the Republicans, although they continue to lob their missiles at anything Democratic. Are the House Democrats, at last, taking a stand against Reagan/Bush/Obamanomics?

First up, 54 House Democrats have sent a letter telling President Obama that they cannot accept his capitulation compromise bill with the hostage takers Republicans in its current form.

House Democrats Voice Opposition to Tax Cut Deal

In a closed door caucus meeting on Thursday morning, House Democrats voted to reject the tax cut deal between the White House and Congressional Republicans “as currently written.”

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in a statement after the vote said changes would need to be made to the bill before she allows it to come to the floor for a vote.

“In the caucus today, House Democrats supported a resolution to reject the Senate Republican tax provisions as currently written,” Ms. Pelosi said. “We will continue discussions with the President and our Democratic and Republican colleagues in the days ahead to improve the proposal before it comes to the House floor for a vote.”. . . . . .

“House Democrats share the president’s commitment to providing the middle class with a tax cut to grow the economy and create jobs,” Ms. Pelosi said. “The House passed a bill last week to provide tax cuts for all Americans but not a bonus tax cut to millionaires and billionaires. The extra tax cut for the top 3 percent does not create jobs and increases the deficit. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans blocked the bill from being approved by the Senate.”

Ms. Pelosi added, “Democratic priorities remain clear: to provide a tax cut for working families, to create jobs and economic growth, to assist millions of our fellow Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and to do this in a fiscally sound way.”

The President continues to tout that this bill will create “millions of jobs”. Really? When in the last 10 years have these tax cuts created one job? This is just more trickle down, voodoo economics. Obamanomics.

The economy will move “backward” if lawmakers don’t approve a deal to extend tax cuts for the rich in exchange for more unemployment benefits, President Obama said Thursday.

“Every economist that I’ve talked to or that I’ve read over the last couple of days agrees that this agreement will boost economic growth over the next couple of years and has the potential to create millions of jobs,” Obama said at a meeting with his Export Council.

Families will welcome tax cuts in their paychecks in January with the deal, Obama said, warning that “if this framework fails, the reverse is true.” He added, “Americans would see it in smaller paychecks that would have the effect of fewer jobs.”.

The vote on the Dream Act and the Defense Authorization Act which contains the repeal of DADT have also been postponed by Majority Leader Reid.

With time running out on the lame-duck session of Congress, the Senate Wednesday postponed a vote on the controversial immigration bill known as the DREAM Act and didn’t take up the Defense Authorization bill, which includes an amendment aimed at repealing “Don’t ask, Don’t tell,”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also announced postponement of plans to consider a measure to provide health care compensation to 9/11 first responders. The DREAM Act and 9-11 measure will be taken up Thursday.

“We sometimes run into roadblocks in the Senate,” Reid said, as he explained that a scheduling conflict with the House delayed the DREAM act vote. The House passed the DREAM Act late Wednesday by a vote of 216 to 198.

This morning the Republicans blocked the 9/11 Health Bill as well as Workers’ Rights, Social Security cost of living and Mine Safety Bills.

If the President thinks for one minute that giving the Republicans while they hold the majority of the country hostage, he’s either a fool or a liar. I believe he’s the latter and a bad one at that.

While the MSM is panting over President Obama’s unannounced visit to Bahgram Air Base in Afghanistan, his now canceled teleconferenced meeting with Afghan President Karzai and his address to the troops, the other important news that is getting lost in the frenzy.

Judging from the headlines, the media would have us all believe that the President’s Debt Commission (Cat Food Commission) had approved its final report.

Politico has since changed its headline from “Divided deficit group approves proposal” to the more accurate “Debt panel falls short on votes”

Both CNN and the NYT are touting that the report has bipartisan approval. They would like us to believe that a commission packed with deficit hawks determined to reduce the deficit on the backs of the middle class and the elderly is a great plan because the multimillionaires on the committee embraced it.

Then there is the news about jobs growth, or rather the lack of it, and the increase in unemployment numbers. The poor and unemployed are likely to stay that way and their numbers will grow between now and 2012 if the Republicans and blue dog Democrats have their way.

The Senate hearings on the repeal of DADT extended into it’s second day with some “heroes”, like Sen. Tester making really good argument for repeal now and the villains, like homophobic Sen. McCain who wants to hear from everyone in the military this will affect over the “next year”. Amazingly the biggest “hero” today was Defense Secretary Gates who told GOP Senators that “polling troops on policy decisions is a dangerous affront to our nation’s unbroken history of civilian control over the military”:

GATES: I can’t think of a single precedent in America history of doing a referendum of the American Armed Forces on a policy issue. Are you going to ask them if they want 15-month tours? Are you going to ask them if they want to be part of the surge in Iraq? That’s not the way our civilian-led military has ever worked in our entire history . . . I think in effect doing a referendum of the members of the Armed Forces on a policy matter is a very dangerous path.

Meanwhile, CNN and MSNBC are salivating over a photo-op visit to Afghanistan while Fox News just keeps spewing its usual twisting of myths and facts while babbling about ventriloquists.